M oney isn’t the root of all evil. Money is the root of everything . What money is, is necessary. Necessary for good stuff. Necessary for bad stuff. Necessary for all the stuff that comes in between – the stuff of life. But what money also is, is very hard to comprehend. Why’s this soiled, crumpled, over-decorated piece of paper bearing a picture of a man who was something of a failure as a president worth $50? Meanwhile, why’s this clean, soft, white, and cleverly folded piece of paper worth so little that I just blew my nose on it? And it’s not just me who’s confused. All the world’s top economists, powerful central bankers, and leading politicians seem to lack a basic conceptual understanding of money. What exactly is a “dollar”? If it’s a thing that I want, why do I prefer to have 50 grimy old dollars instead of one nice new one? This isn’t true of other things – like
In ancient times, money didn’t exist. Or rather, everything that existed was money. If I sold you a cow for six goats, you were charging it on your Goat Card.
We need economic goods all the time, but we don’t always need money for them. And that’s a good thing, since for most of human existence, there wasn’t any money at all. In ancient times, money didn’t exist. Or rather, everything that existed was money. If I sold you a cow for six goats, you were charging it on your Goat Card. value itself, is “commodity money.” Societies that didn’t have dollar bills picked one or two commodities as proto-greenbacks. The Aztecs used cocoa beans for money, North Africans used salt (the origin of the word “salary”), and medieval Norwegians used butter and dried cod. (Their ATMs were a mess.) Some commodities work Anything that’s used to measure value, if it has
a puppy. Money is not a specific thing. Money is a symbol of things in general, a symbol of how much you want things, and a symbol of how many things you’re going to get. Money is an abstract representation of value. But what is value? The brief answer is “it’s complicated.” Value varies according to time, place, circumstance, and whether the puppy ruined the rug. Plus, some things are difficult to place a value on. This is why we don’t use money to measure all of our exchanges. Kids get food, clothing, and shelter from parents. And in return, parents get... kids. Important emotional, moral, and legal distinctions are made between sex and paying for sex, even if the socially approved kind of sex costs a dinner and a movie.
puppies, for instance. Of course, money is not
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